A traditional kickoff to the Christmas season in Marion County begins Sunday and continues the following weekend.
Improve Baptist Church is hosting Scenes of Christ again this year, and the live production will take place from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m. Nov. 25, Dec. 1 and Dec. 2 on the church grounds at 2979 Mississippi 44.
“This year, the first scene is different,” Pastor Darel Daniels said. “One year, you came into the Garden of Eden. This year, that’s not the case. The next year you came out and saw the manger scene. This year, all I’ll tell those who are visiting is that they will be interacting as you walk out the door.”
But that’s not all that is new at the event that has been around for decades and depicts the life of Christ.
“We’ve added a little twist that comes together at the end,” Daniels said. “The last scene is a little different than it’s been in the past. You, know, it’s all about Jesus, though.”
Church members and other volunteers have been working for months to prepare for Scenes of Christ, according to Daniels.
“We usually start about August,” he said. “We could start in July, but we want people to get through their vacations and so when things get going in the fall with school, we get back to work. We have work days, where we’ll work twice a month and then the closer it gets, the more work days we have. It’s all them members of our church, and we’ve got members from Goss, Bunker Hill and all the surrounding churches. We’ve got people that come say, ‘Hey, can we help?’ and we plug them in.”
Last year around 2,000 people walked through the scenes.
“We have had as many a 1,800 in one night,” he said. “A lot of people are under the impression that they’ve seen it and don’t need to come again. Every year it changes. It’s evolving and growing. We’re adding scenes. It would be good for anybody who hasn’t come in several years to bring their family and come through. I promise you it will be a good experience.”
Ultimately, the goal is to tell the story of Jesus, according to Daniels.
“People will see that Jesus really is the reason for the season,” he said. “It’s not just about Christmas. Christmas is when we celebrate the gift from God that came. Let me tell you what, the greatest gift is yet to come and that was when he paid for our sins on the cross at Calvary. If he had just died on Calvary, that would have been the greatest love story every told, but if that was the end of it, we still wouldn’t have any hope. Then you move on to that empty tomb, where God raised Jesus from the dead and that gives us hope of eternal life. We want them to see Jesus in the story. We want the props and everything to be good, the best that we can make it, but ultimately, we want people from Scene 1 to the last scene to get a picture of Jesus.”
Pictured Above: The Last Supper is seen at last year’s production of Scenes of Christ at Improve Baptist Church. Nearly 2,000 people attended the three-night program last year. Dozens of volunteers help recreate scenes from Christ’s life. | Photo by Mark Rogers
